Ma$e Clears Air On Diddy’s Bad Boy Deal: “I’ve Been In That Contract For 16 Years”

New York rap veteran Ma$e has finally come clean on his legal situation with Bad Boy Records and revealed if he is still under contract to longtime boss Diddy.

While the Harlem emcee did not get into specifics, he did reveal Puff Daddy recently let him loose.

“I’ve been in that contract for 16 years,” he said, letting out that patented Ma$e giggle that fans came to love back in the late 1990s. “Yeah, the other day he let me out of it, so big shout-outs to Diddy, I guess he woke up feeling good and he wanted to do something good.” So now that he is officially a free agent, where will Ma$e sign? Well, maybe nowhere. “At this point, I don’t really want to be under nobody from the aspect of being tied in a long, long contract,” he said. “It’s kinda like breaking up; you don’t want to jump into a new relationship.” (MTV)

He also hinted at an interest in taking his talent to rap star Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music team.

Ma$e says that he is fond of Kanye’s fearless in-studio nature and that is one of the things that attracts him to G.O.O.D. He also count’s Yeezy’s protégé Big Sean as one of his favorite rappers. “I’ma have to go somewhere. I would entertain that,” Ma$e said about the G.O.O.D. deal, which seems to be a little more than a rumored possibility at this point. “I love Kanye, I love what he does musically, I love his ability to push the envelope. I like to be around people that’s not afraid to be different.” (MTV)

Back in May, G.O.O.D. Music protégé Big Sean dished out some details of an unexpected Ma$e chat.

“Mase just hit me up, too. We got something in the works,” Sean revealed in an interview. “He surprised me, he called me just out of nowhere. He was like, ‘What’s up, this Mase — I’m really digging your style. We need to work on something.’ I’m like, ‘What the f*ck?’ [laughs] Nah, but, that’s somebody I came up listening to, that whole Bad Boy era — we got something in the works for him, a lot of people.” (Cipha Sounds & Peter Rosenberg)

“Flex, let me tell you something before I go, though,” Ma$e said, “I can only do music if I can do it the way I can do it. That’s what be making me stop. I don’t want to do music in a box. Like everybody say what I can’t do and he can’t say this, but if you need me to come do something for you, I’ve gotta be able to come to that event. So I’m taking all the limitations off. They gonna have to pray for me. I regret not giving myself room for growth. That’s what I regret. I went so hard left that I didn’t really leave no room to be an individual, a human being. … I still put God over music any day. I just didn’t give myself room to grow. I went from one extreme to another extreme.” (“The Funkmaster Flex Show”)